“Standing is better than walking,
Sitting is better than standing,
Lying is better than sitting,
And sleep is the best of all.”
1 Corinthians xix., 7.
Klomp nodded again, as the Dominé turned with a jump. “How dare you put a Bible tag under such nonsense as this?” cried the Dominé, sniffing like a warhorse.
“Yes, yes, the Bible knows,” replied Klomp, imperturbably. “It’s word of Holy Scripture, Dominé, so you can’t say it isn’t true.”
“Word of holy scribbling!” cried the indignant clergyman. “It’s no more in God’s Bible, Klomp, than you are in God’s fold. And you haven’t even got it correct, for it ends ‘And death is the best of all.’”
Suddenly a dark cloud seemed to spread across the sunlit landscape. The surrounding larch-trees shivered, with a long-drawn sigh.
“I wish you would move a little on one side, Dominé,” said Klomp, querulously, though he had never heard of Diogenes. “Thank you. Well, a peddler-man that came showed it me in a book, and he said it was in the Bible, and if it isn’t, it ought to be. Them’s my sentiments. Morning, Dominé.”
His feet slipped forward under the weariness of this long discourse; he recovered himself with a shuffle. Broad as the concluding hint had been, the Dominé ignored it.
“You never do anything, Klomp,” he said, angrily.
“Then I never do anything wrong, Dominé. I don’t drink. I don’t even smoke. I’m too poor.”